20 November 2005

Guy Fawkes Day.

The fireworks in the comics of the English based Fred Basset comic strip this week reminded me that I had forgotten to observe Guy Fawkes Day (November 5), which is a truly odd holiday celeberated with fireworks. It commemorates the discovery of a conspiracy in 1605 to blow up the House of Lords (with the King and the rest of parliament in it) as part of an English Catholic uprising that failed and produced an anti-Catholic backlash. Guy Fawkes was one of the conspirators who was caught in the act and executed.

My morals of the story:

(1) There is nothing new about religious based terrorism.(2) Terror plots are best stopped as his was, with some sense of duty to report the evil deed from someone who is privy to the conspiracy.